Gah! Once again I got so busy with Theo Four that I had to be reminded. Here is the next chapter of Theo Three, THEODOSIA AND THE EYES OF HORUS.

For those of you just tuning in, I am posting a chapter a month of Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus to help tide you over until the book comes out in April. I also need to post my standard spoiler alert:

WARNING, This chapter of Book Three, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus, MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOOK TWO, Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris. So if you haven’t read that yet, STOP RIGHT NOW. The rest of the chapter is up under the cut in order to protect those who haven’t read Book Two yet.

C H A P T E R  F I V E

HE N RY  MA K E S   A N   U N E X PE C T E D  D I S C OV E RY

STILTON HAD THE DRIVER DROP ME at the corner of the square then take him around to the back of the building so we wouldn’t be seen together and raise any suspicions.

I opened the front door of the museum and peered cautiously inside. The foyer was a jumbled mess, partially assembled display cases were scattered throughout and half-unpacked crates littered the floor. At first glance, it appeared empty. Then I spied Clive Fagenbush coming down the stairs, carrying an enormous crate.

Like a hound on a scent, he quickly found me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes when I want to work on a book but my writing brain is too tired, I’ll do a collage of the book to help stay involved in the story world. Howver, for the Theodosia books, I decided to try something else–an altered book, which is basically a bunch of collages inside the pages of an old book. This altered book is really more about helping me stay fully immersed in the world, while giving my mind something else to focus on besides the words on the page. Plus, I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun it is!

So first, I had to find the right book to alter. How thrilled was I to find the above book at the library’s used book store–it’s even a translation of an Arabic poem! How perfect.

This first image was my first experiment. It’s very simple,  just a mood piece for the first book, touching on picking up Mother from the train station.

This next picture was trying to evoke the sense of showdown I knew was coming in Book Two, involving the Dreadnought, the Serpents of Chaos, and a certain prophecy regarding a red sun…

And lastly, a scene in the catacombs, with all those mummies…

While I will confess to being all thumbs when it comes to art, I do love collaging. I love the whole “found” thing aspect of the art form, the junk turned to jewels element of taking used and discarded trash and scraps and using that to create something beautiful and evocative.

It reminds me very much of writing, actually.

As a writer, I collect mental junk, a face here, a look there. The snippet of conversation I overheard at the restaurant. The scolding I heard the mother give her son at the grocery store. The surprising sight of a teenage punk driving his 80 year old grandmother around in his hyped up jalopy. A sunset. A birdsong. A remembered feeling from when I was seven years old. This is the sort of stuff writers collect in their heads, where it rolls around for years, decades sometimes, until it becomes tumbled and smoothed and juxtaposed with other things and becomes something entirely new.

First of all, I have to apologize as I should have mentioned this last week, but I forgot with all the Thanksgiving mayhem.

Over at HipWriterMama we are having a contest and giving away an Advanced Reader’s Copy of the Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus! So if you’re interested in entering, hop on over there.

But do it quickly! The contest ends Monday, November 30 at 11:00 pm EST.  Good luck!

Recently I’ve gotten a number of emails asking me some very similar questions, so I thought I’d post the answers here on the blog. These questions are courtesy of Elise.

1. When is your birthday?

September 21

2.What is your favorite color?

It changes, depending on my mood, but usually green, blue, or purple.

3. What is your favorite food?

It’s a toss up between homemade bread, popcorn, or ice cream.

4. what inspired you to write?

I’ve always enjoyed writing, ever since I was eight years old. What inspired me to write Theodosia’s story was a combination of my love of ancient Egypt and a desire to write a book I would have loved when I was eleven years old.

5. Is there a reason you named her Theodosia?

Honestly, that name just kind of popped into my head sounding very British and old fashioned, so I grabbed it. Sometimes I have to search high and low for a name and sometimes it just comes to me, that one was a “just come to me” sort of name.

6. Will you write more Theo books after the Eyes of Horus?

Yes.

7. If yes, how many? At least two.

8. What will they be called?

Right now, the working titles are, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus, and Theodosia and the Flame of Sekhmet.

9. Do you have any pets?

I used to have lots of pets, but now only one. (For more about my earlier pets, read here.)

10. If yes, what are they and what are their names?

One very old, cranky, demonic cat named Oreo.

11. if you met me would you treat me like a little kid or a grownup based on my writing to you?

I would treat you like an equal unless you did something that forced me to treat you like a little kid (like disrupted a school presentation I was giving.) One of the reasons I write for kids, and write a character like Theo specifically, is that I DO firmly believe that kids are much smarter, wiser, and generally on top of things than they tend to get credit for.

Ta da! Here is the cover art for the third Theodosia book, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus!

How much do I adore these Theodosia covers?? Yoko Tanaka is a GENIUS!

I just wanted to let you know I will be having a booksigning at Barnes and Noble in The Woodlands, Texas on October 18 at 2:00. You can check out more details here.

If any of you are in the area, I’d LOVE a chance to meet you!

By virtue of Random.org, the winner is…Christine!

Congratulations Christine! Email me and I will get that out to you!

Thanks to everyone who entered. We’ll have another one soon….

I am hugely excited to be able to announce a very special treat, brought to us courtesy of my awesome publisher!

I know that for some of you the wait for the next Theodosia book seems interminable. And nineteen months between books is a long time, I’ll grant you that. But, especially for you blog readers, my publisher has agreed to let me put up excerpts of the third Theodosia book, Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus. And not just the first chapter, but a chapter a month right up until the book actually comes out! Those of you who are dying for your next Theodosia fix will be able to get it right here.

I know there are some readers who are new to Theodosia and haven’t had a chance to read Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris yet, so I’m giving you guys a week’s head’s up before I start posting excerpts from Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus. OSIRIS is out in paperback now, so getting a hold of it won’t stretch your budget too far. Ten to twelve hours of entertainment for only $6.99? Who can beat that?

But. That’s not the only way to get a hold of Book Two.

And, in honor of this, I am also going to have a contest to give away copies of OSIRIS, just in case there are any new readers who haven’t found Book Two yet. That way, they won’t risk spoilers or getting left behind! All you have to do is leave a comment in this thread between now and midnight on Sunday, October 4. Winners will be announced Monday morning, then the first excerpt will go up next week.

For those of you who send me an email through the contact page here, please double check your email address. If you don’t leave a correct one, I can’t get back to you!

(Keeley and Julia Rose–I’m looking at you! The email addresses you left aren’t working…)

If you’ve read any of the Theodosia books, you know how central a role secret societies play. What you may not know is that the secret societies in the books are based on societies that actually existed.

In Victorian England, there were a number of brotherhoods and societies dedicated to all sorts of intellectual pursuits, horticulture, zoological studies, philosophy, archaeology, classical studies. You name it, there was probably some sort of society or club to study it.

Including subjects of the occult and ancient mysteries.

In fact, the Victorian age saw a huge boom in interest in these subjects. Some scholars think it was because of the advances of the industrial revolution and scientific progress. With science and technology taking on a much larger role in society—and answering a lot of questions that had been unanswerable before then—people hungered for the mystical and magical. Some of these secret societies focused on gaining magical knowledge and others focused more on gaining the wisdom behind these practices. They felt magic was a way to gain a more highly developed spiritual nature.

Here are some pictures of actual secret society members dressed for their ceremonies. I used these pictures as the basis for some of the ceremonies of the Arcane Order of the Black Sun in Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris.

As they say, truth IS stranger than fiction! And yes, secret societies continue to play a huge part in Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus!

And we have a drawing winner! Ashoka has won a newly released paperback of Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris. Thanks to everyone who weighed in with their favorite cover choices. The French version was the hands down winner. Ashoka I will be emailing you for your address so I can send you the prize.

And speaking of staffs, I get asked a lot about how much of the Egyptian lore and magic in the books is real and how much is made up. While the idea of an actual staff that belonged to Osiris was a construct of mine, the idea that Osiris once lived and walked the earth was not, nor was the idea of magical staffs. The staff was a symbol of authority used by both the pharaohs and Egyptian priests. I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of the real Egyptian staff that was the creative spark around which the Staff of Osiris was built. Here is a picture of an actual staff taken from a tomb under the Ramesseum in Thebes.

It was found tangled with a mass of hair! Isn’t that especially creepy!

In the comments to my last post, someone asked about the cover for Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus. It’s not available yet, but I’ll post it as soon as it is. In the meantime, I thought it might be kind of fun to see all the foreign covers of Theodosia. The book has been published in French, Polish, Italian, and German. It’s been hugely fun seeing how the different countries design different covers.

In French: Theodosia et les Serpents du Chaos

In Italian:

In German:

In Polish: (Even though it’s the same cover, I love the way the title looks in Polish.)

Do you have a favorite? Post your favorite cover in the comments and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a just released paperback copy of Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris!

The contest will run until next Monday, when I’ll announce the winner in my next post. Good luck!

(p.s. The more entries there are, the more winners I’ll draw. I’ll draw one winner for every ten people that comment!)

Hello! Long time no see!

Theodosia is off having a wild string of adventures, so this is RL checking in with you to give you some updates.

First of all the paperback edition of THEODOSIA AND THE STAFF OF OSIRIS is out now.

Secondly, some of you have been asking when the next Theodosia book is out. Well, THEODOSIA AND THE EYES OF HORUS will be out in April 2010.

I am also very excited to officially announce there will be a fourth book, THEODOSIA AND THE LAST PHAROAH! The Last Pharoah will be out sometime in the spring of 2011. So you there will be lots of Theodosia for your reading pleasure for years to come. ☺

For those of you wondering what just what Book Three will be about, here is a sneak preview of the cover copy. Enjoy!

Being able to detect black magic isn’t all tea and crumpets—and when you’re Theodosia Throckmorton, it can be a decidedly tricky business! When Sticky Will drags Theo to a magic show featuring the Great Awi Bubu, she quickly senses there is more to the magician than he lets on, setting in motion a chain of events she never could have bargained for.

Meanwhile, back at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities, Henry is home for the spring holidays and makes an accidental discovery of an artifact alchemists have been hunting for centuries. Soon, every black-cloaked occultist in London is trying to get their hands on it.

Further complicating Theo’s life is her grandmother, who is determined to give her ex-beau a proper funeral, and the head of the Chosen Keepers’ insistence that Theo work with her nemesis, Clive Fagenbush (who still smells of boiled cabbage and pickled onions). Toss in a disgruntled mut, Sticky Will’s newfound career goals, as well as further meddling by the Arcane Order of the Black Sun, and you have another rollicking adventure as Theodosia and her friends are pursued in a race for one of the most guarded ancient secrets of all time.

RL here again. I will be doing some upcoming appearances and events in the Dallas and Austin areas and wanted to let people know in case there were any blog readers who felt like stopping by and saying hello!

Friday, March 20 2009  8:15 PM
Arts and Letters Live “Fresh Ink” Series
Horchow Auditorium
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, TX 75201

Saturday, March 21, 2009  11 AM
Legacy Books, Plano TX
7300 N Dallas Pky
Plano, TX

Sunday, March 22, 2009  3 PM
BookPeople Austin, TX
603 N. Lamar
Austin, TX 78703

If any of you out there live nearby I would love to see you!

Hello, RL here. I’ve had some great reader questions lately, so I thought I’d answer them here. (And also because the email address you gave me was wrong, Claire, so my answer to your email keeps bouncing back to me! Oops.)

What was your childhood like? Was it as exciting as Edwardian England?

Well, it was very different from Edwardian England, but exciting in its own way. To learn more of the gory details, you can go here: http://www.rllafevers.com/about.html

Do you and Theo share any traits? If so, what?

Well, I was a bit precocious, but cowardly about it, so a lot of what Theo thinks are the kinds of things I thought but didn’t have the courage to voice to anyone when I was a kid. I’m very sensitive to my surroundings, which is where Theo’s special powers came from; I love libraries and research books, and digging into the past, and am fascinated by Ancient Egypt. And I had to take care of my parents sometimes, help them with the things they forgot.

Do you think that if Henry had not gotten sick with flu, would Theo have treated him the same?

I think so. Even if Henry hadn’t had his brush with death, Theo had, and she learned a lot from that. Also, finally having her parents acknowledge her and show her how much they cared about her helped her feel freer in demonstrating her affection for Henry.